1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a specimen processing system, more specifically, to a specimen processing system using specimen carriers for clinical inspections which is suitable for performing automatic specimen inspections.
2. Conventional Art
A usual specimen processing system includes a variety of processing units (such as a centrifugal separator, a plug or cap opener, a pipetter or aliquoter, a bar code labeler, a plug closer or a restopper, a sorter and an analyzer) each incorporating a rack transportation portion and transportation lines connecting these processing units, and through series connection of one processing unit with another processing unit, a transportation line with a processing unit and one transportation line with another transportation line the specimen processing system is constituted.
"Hitachi Review, vol. 41(1992), No. 4, pp 167--172" discloses an automatic specimen or sample handling system in which a transportation line for transporting specimens or samples is constituted by a plurality of transportation routes to branch the same into a plurality lines so as to permit distribution of a specimen into a variety of the processing units.
The processing units arranged in this system includes such as an automated centrifuge unit for separating blood into serums and cells, a cap opener unit for automatically removing the caps on the same sample containers, a pipetter or aliquoter unit for pipetting serums of a mother sample container to a daughter sample container, a bar code labeler unit for adhering a bar code label having the same ID as that of the mother sample on the daughter sample container, a plug closer or restopper unit for closing a sample container with a cap, a sample sorting unit for sorting the sample containers according to inspection groups and a chemical analyzer unit for performing an automatic chemical analysis on the samples.
"Clinical Inspection, vol. 37, No. 11 (1993, an extra edition)" discloses a provision of respective bar code readers for a plurality of functional units disposed in a specimen transportation system, thereby misidentification between specimens is prevented by reading bar code information attached on the respective specimen containers by the bar code readers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,366,062 discloses a conveyer system for transporting specimen carriers each carrying specimen containers to a plurality of work stations.
In the conventional specimen processing systems as explained above, each of the specimen processing units performs the communication processing inquiring the processing items for every specimen container to a central information processing unit or a central controller, therefore, as the number of the specimen containers and the specimen processing units or devices increases, the amount of communication increases which necessitates a complex communication system of a large scale and a high processing speed.